11/10/2012 - New director Marco Müller’s festival will also include an all-Italian section called Perspectives Italy, featuring debut and second films

The seventh edition of Rome’s International Film Festival (9-17 November), and Marco Müller’s first at the helm of it, will feature three Italian films. Alì ha gli occhi azzurri by Claudio Giovannesi, E la chiamano estate [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Paolo Franchi and Il volto di un'altra by Pappi Corsicato.

Produced by Acaba with Rai Cinema, Alì ha gli occhi azzurri is Giovannesi’s second work of fiction after La casa sulle nuvole. Set in Ostia, it shows a week in the life of an Egyptian teenager trying to break loose from his family’s values. His journey sees him encounter cold, loneliness, hunger and fear. The film, which photography was done by Daniele Ciprì (E' stato il figlio [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), will be coming out on November 15 with BIM.

E la chiamano estate by Paolo Franchi (La spettatrice) is set to be one of next season’s hottest films. Produced by Nicoletta Mantovani for Pavarotti International with contribution from the Apulia Film Commission, it features Isabella Ferrari and French American actor Jean-Marc Barr (also starring in upcoming Nymphomaniac by Lars Von Trier). The film tells the story of a married couple living a platonic relationship. Husband spends his nights going from between prostitutes to swinger bars, eventually getting his wife involved in his obsession. Franchi’s film will be distributed in cinemas on November 22 by Officine UBU.

Pappi Corsicato returns to the big screen four years after Il seme della discordia with an ironic film on show business and plastic surgery called Il volto di un'altra (photo). The main characters are a couple of television personalities (played by Laura Chiatti and Alessandro Preziosi) who will stop at nothing to improve their image and be successful. It is a mixture of American-style romantic comedy, Italian costume cinema and funny horror. The film, produced by R&C by Tilde Corsi and Gianni Romoli in partnership with Rai Cinema, will be coming out in February 2013 with Officine Ubu.

The Italian presence in Rome will not be limited to the competition strand however. Michele Placido is the man behind out of competition French, Italian and Belgian coproduction entitled Le Guetteur [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (The watchman), starring Daniel Auteuil, Mathieu Kassovitz, Olivier Gourmet, Francis Renaud, Violante Placido and Luca Argentero. The film is about a bank robbery gone wrong and was written by the same author of Italian film Romanzo criminale [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michele Placido
film profile].

Going even further, Italian cinema has had an entire competitive section dedicated to it, focusing on debut and second films. Perspectives Italy will include six feature length films, among which Susanna Nicchiarelli’s second film La scoperta dell'alba, with Margherita Buy and Sergio Rubini, and Alessandro Gassman’s film debut Razza bastarda, six documentaries, among which Il leone di Orvieto by Aureliano Amadei (20 sigarette), a thrilling comedy on global finance and other medium and short length films.

In the newest, most experimental section CinemaXXI, Tutto parla di me by Alina Marazzi (Vogliamo anche le rose) stands out, starring Charlotte Rampling and Elena Radonicich. It explores the ambivalence of maternal instinct and is halfway between documentary and fiction.

(Translated from Italian)